Obama Admin Fights Missing White House Email Lawsuit 345
DesScorp writes "The AP reports that the Obama administration has picked up where the Bush administration left off on the missing White House email issue by trying to have a lawsuit dismissed that would have kept investigating whether or not email was still missing. Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President expressed disappointment with the Obama administration's actions. Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government. The Justice Department 'apparently never got the message' from Obama, Blanton said."
CHANGE (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think people quite got what "YES WE CAN" really meant. They didn't read the "FUCK YOU OVER" at the end that was implied.
One month... (Score:5, Insightful)
The new Administration has fallen far short of a lot of people's expectations, including mine. Two points though. One, it's been only a month. And two, if you consider the situation that they have been handed, I think they are at least trying to do best that they can. I can't comment on the e-mail case specifically, but I have done a lot of reading on the black hole of illegally held terrorism suspects. In that case, they have two choices: bring lawsuits against a greater part of the current government and past governments involved, or do the right thing from here on out.
Personally, I would love to see every senior officer kicked out in disgrace over what they have done to American principle. Even if it's often violated in secret, at least we could pretend that we had some moral standards. But when the President and Vice President are ordering torture, renditions, and even assassinations, the chain of command is simply doing it's job. If the new Administration spent years wringing the necks of officers following orders, would the chain of command still work?
Perhaps if the economic situation weren't so bad, there could be a good year of congressional hearings, where dirty laundry is thrown on the table and people who deserve it are thrown in jail. And sure, the economic crisis may be something that the Obama Administration is intentionally overplaying in order to have some breathing room on everything else. They're not stupid, so they either believe the situation is that dire, or they are pretending to for political purposes.
For the sake of argument, imagine if you bought out a poorly run company. You may find mountains of incriminating papers, a staff that was half corrupted, and accountants who deserve to be set on fire. But if you're to turn this company around, would the smart thing to do be to march them all into the street for a mob lynching, or quietly and over time reform the company without completely ruining it's reputation in the process? The absolutely right thing to do is probably bankrupt the company and start over. It may be that in the current steaming pile of shit situation that the Bush dynasty has left us, re-forming the government is correct, but reforming the government is prudent.
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i mostly agree with you. i'm gonna godwin myself, though, and say that
"But when the President and Vice President are ordering torture, renditions, and even assassinations, the chain of command is simply doing it's job."
is exactly what all the nazis said at nuremburg. "i was just following orders." well, some orders are just evil. and it's every human being's responsibility to know that. if i showed up tomorrow and my boss said, "lock this guy up. don't let him see a lawyer. don't tell him what he's d
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment [wikipedia.org]
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I would NOT DO IT.
Good.
neither would you.
Well, I've spent a while saying I wouldn't. Of course it won't be as obvious as you play it so we've got to keep our eyes open.
But from the discussions about it here I have to assume that most people would be okay with it at least as long as they were assured it was legal.
The problem is that like how in the global economy our government can't just print new money and have it accepted, they also can't just write off the guilt of a million deaths even if we all close our eyes to it.
If we were to bet on t
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package-deal_fallacy [wikipedia.org]
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I don't think people quite got what "YES WE CAN" really meant. They didn't read the "FUCK YOU OVER" at the end that was implied.
In other words, voting for change doesn't mean you get it. The one common aspect to most forms of intoxication is that eventually you have to come down from the high. Obama rapture is no exception.
Re:In Defense of Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
We must not allow the government to operate in secret. It is our lack of vigilance that put us where are today, with a government that becomes more corrupt with every passing day. We don't need you making excuses for them.
How so? (Score:5, Interesting)
How so? Particularly with regard to government operations.
And yet you have not established that secrecy is a necessity for honesty.
But I can give you MANY examples of secrecy being a necessity for DISHONESTY.
Why would that be necessary?
And that makes sense as long as you agree with every decision made.
Fuck that.
This is our elected government. Not our king.
So I can vote for someone ... who then becomes unquestionable.
Fuck that, too.
They're elected officials. This is not an autocracy.
What the .... ? (Score:5, Interesting)
We are electing politicians. Not princes and kings.
And now you're confusing oversight with "harassment".
Your "logic" is self contradictory.
By your "logic".
They were elected to do a job.
Once they are elected, they can do whatever they want to do.
And no matter what they are doing, the public must not bother them about what they are doing.
Even if what they are doing is the opposite of what the people who voted for them asked them to do.
Fuck that. Fuck princes and kings. I'm watching my elected officials. I'm watching what they're doing. If I don't approve, I let them know.
You can keep your princes and kings.
In a Republic, they are elected (Score:2)
Having said "This is a Republic, not a Democracy" [slashdot.org] I'll point out that in a republic the leaders are not necessarily elected. All that's needed for a republic to exist is that the head of state not be a monarch.
I mean, what has all of this conflict accomplished?
It shows the rest of the world that people can question their government and don't need to take thinks on "faith" or at the point of a gun.
Falcon
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Republics work? Where? Rome?
Hey, 2000 years later, we're still talking about them. So, obviously that answer is YES. And indeed, the Constitution was defined by Madison to correct some of the flaws that lead to the Roman drive to Empire.
Time to end this thread. (Score:2, Insightful)
2000 years from now we'll probably still be talking about Nazi Germany. So your "obviously" is 100% wrong.
Simply being a subject of discussion does NOT mean anything beyond being a subject of discussion.
Once again, you are wrong.
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2000 years from now we'll probably still be talking about Nazi Germany
Will we? Hitler doesn't get 2000 years of fame unless he would have conquered Russia too and at least introduced something of cultural use. Then, even if his empire were short lived, the sheer scale of it would have been impressive and the leaving of some sort of law would have left a legacy to consider positively.
So, in the grand scheme of things, if you had to remember one conquering unifier of Europe, you would have to probably study
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Being president should not be a job to aspire towards
My point is that you get the Presidents you pay for.
Re:Time to end this thread. (Score:4, Interesting)
Fixed that for you. 'Modern politics' has become such a media circus, I'm surprised they haven't turned it into a reality show yet.
Oh, wait...
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Republics work.
Where? Rome?
Yes, that's actually a very good example of a republic that worked. The ancient Romans maintained a very high civilization that lasted a hell of a lot longer than we've been around, and way longer than we're likely to. So yes, Republics can work, can work very well, but like all edifices built by the hand of Man they don't last forever.
Nothing does. Even the Great Pyramid will be dust one day.
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the real national crisis was a Fannie Mae house of cards that the American left created?
Citation needed.
If there was a genuine investigation of the last 8 years, half the Democrats in Congress ought to be executed.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
I promise any Republican that there will be no trials, only murders, for what these people have done to this country.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Falcon
You have a point. (Score:2)
Citation needed
There's a lot out there. If you want to follow the WSJ, you can go there through the back issues, all the way back to when Fannie Mae, during the time of Clinton way back when, announced it would make a trillion dollars worth of home loans available due to some new fancy instrument. I remember hearing it in a bar and actually bought a round of drinks because I thought it was a great thing to put everyone into houses. I guess I still do, but damn the WSJ the very next day said it was a stup
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And besides, both are nothing more than factions of the same party.
Sigh... you are right.
I'm just angry and frustrated and the awful truth is that we elected these assholes because we wanted them. We all wanted our houses to go up in value and take the money and spend it. We all wanted poor people to own their own homes and we all know that the budget was a gimmick laden mess and the value of our real estate was a fraud. I'll give Obama credit for putting the wars and other expenses back onto the officia
trade (Score:2)
if you really wanted to benefit the American working man, you'd cut off the flow of imports
If you really wanted to help the working American then you would support free trade, not protectionism.
It's a system that worked pretty well for the USA before...
When was this? Certainly not when protectionists passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act [wikipedia.org] which led to the Great Depression [wikipedia.org].
I agree about Jerry Falwell, but I also think Reagan's decision to adopt free trade as part of his reform, and Clinton's decision to stick w
Re:In Defense of Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Economic policies have long lag times. It has taken 6 years to the results of Greenspan's low interest rate regime. Similarly, Volcker's policies were very unpopular when they were implemented, but they paid off 3-4 years later.
You judge a president by whether he has the balls to not push the cost on to future generations and make politically unpopular decisions. A good president would say "we've spent way more than what we have, so let's take the pain for the next 4-5 years and make sure our children are not burdened".
Don't hold your breath to see someone like that.
Re:In Defense of Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I can expect a little more from my government than cash in my pocket and no occupying forces in my neighborhood. In particular the way the government treats minorities of various kinds (both in terms of physical characteristics and ideological views) is very important - even if the average person ends up better as a result. Should I be happy if the government institutes slavery if it makes me weathier and doesn't cause a war - I should think not!
I can't say I'm surprised by the current administration - it is all working out basically how I thought it would. I'm sure that Obama will right some of Bush's wrongs, and create more than a few wrongs of his own. Republicans will hail him as the antichrist, and Democrats will hail him as the messiah. Eventually the Democrats will make some major blunder and the Republicans will sweep in to save the country. Lather, rinse, repeat... No doubt the promoted special interests will be different, but corruption will be there.
The one thing that gives me hope is that it would be very difficult for the next four years to be as bad as the last four were. It is certainly possible, but I'd think it would be difficult to pull off even by design. That doesn't give the current administration a free pass when they blunder, and it doesn't make any Republican proposal not worth considering...
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It's funny, but all I was arguing was that the very arguments we conservatives used to defend Bush should apply to Obama as well. Like, if Obama does something that we though Bush did that was ok, why should we be up in arms about it? If you agree that Dick Cheney was right about the Presidency needing to reassert itself over a pathetic Congress, then, that reassertion should apply to the left wing as well as the right, even though we may not agree with the results.
Re:In Defense of Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Do not ignore the many non-partisan people who object to any wrong-doing on any party's part. Excusing every wrong by pointing out that someone else did the same wrong, does not lead to a situation with less wrong-doing, but rather more.
My vote is for a Republic, and Harding (Score:5, Insightful)
Liberals regard Warren G Harding as the worst President ever. He was the epitome of smoke filled room deals .. getting the Presidential nomination in one, and his own Presidency was just mired in scandal, from womanizing, conflicts of interests, and bribes. Were he around today, he'd be impeached a week after swearing the oath. But....
During his administration, he cut taxes, deregulated, and also cut spending to match, and the economy boomed. Unemployment fell to a record 1.9%, a record which STILL stands.
Re:In Defense of Obama (Score:4, Insightful)
You should try actually reading the Constitution. The President does not have all the powers you imagine he has, and, in fact, today's presidency is far beyond what it should be.
The ONLY exclusive power the President has is to grant pardons and reprieves. All other powers are subject to approval by Congress. Even the, much flaunted, Commander-in-Chief power: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;" (emphasis mine).
Congress calls the military into service -
"The Congress shall have the Power... To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"
If that is not enough for you, read further down (powers of Congress):
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
So, you see, Congress has the power to make laws concerning all the power given to the entirety of the Federal government, President included. It really is supposed to be the supreme branch, not co-equal. Too bad today's Congress has no spine and no intelligence.
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I've not exactly come out with enthusiastic support for Obama, but I think in this case the administration is doing the right thing. I do not believe the Presidency should be tracked to the extent that it is, because it undermines the ability of the President to do his or her job.
He or she was elected by the people and as such the people should know what the president does. Hiding documents show government is not to be trusted.
These are petty debates and if we are to have a genuine democracy, we should ju
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The problem is, today's presidents have more power than the constitution gave to them. Specifically, read the "war powers act". The constitution certainly gave the president no "war powers".
The thing is, the Founding Father's established the limited ability of the President to engage in military action without congressional consent. Washington did not require consent to declare martial law and put down the Whiskey rebellion, and Jefferson did not seek federal consent for the missions to Tripoli against the
Re:In Defense of Obama (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, congress rolled over (all along, even now) and would have declared whatever Bush told them was needed. The specifics of who signed (or didn't) which piece of paper seem unimportant.
As for your earlier point about tracking every presidential actions, it's an issue of trust. If we had a system where we could trust our president, even a little, to mean and do what he says we'd might be willing to look away for a moment.
Your example of the Barbary pirates is a good one. We do authorize the president to deal with these things assuming that he's acting in our names or will stop if he realizes he made a mistake. Even in areas where this means things that would otherwise be crimes if he didn't have the shield of working in our names like killing pirates, tapping phones, etc.
Bush lied though. Repeatedly. Directly, and indirectly by paying people to lie to him. He knowingly and in so many words manufactured a case for war where there wasn't one. If we had the info, the people would all be jointly liable for the errors. But by lying to us Bush took away our oversight ability. Essentially starting an unjustified war and (to use the word the rest of the world would, murdering) hundreds of thousands.
So I'm seeing more of a reason to keep close tabs on the president than not. In fact, if you want to have any claim to the USA being an ethical nation I think you'd acknowledge that we all have a responsibility to ensure that corruption is investigated and harshly punished.
That trust I mentioned though. I know of one way to have a bit of it. If there was a law (not a one-time decree aimed at parting rivals) that would get Bush tried for his crimes then it would also apply to Obama if he did the same.
Bush taught us to watch closely or there'd be another torture camp deporting our and allied citizens for torture. If the only way we can avoid the worst depravity is constant vigil than constant vigil it must be.
Re:It's government corruption (Score:4, Insightful)
The U.S. government is VERY corrupt. Bush administration officials [...]
I know /. news tends to be a bit behind the times, but I would have thought folks would have noticed by now that Bush isn't part of the U.S. government any more.
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Try replacing them with someone who has actually done productive work, not lawyers.
As a matter of fact, the past half-century or so has seen an influx of non-lawyers into the legislature. The predictable result: Poorly written, unjust, often unconstitutional laws. Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act FTW.
And you... you want more of this?
Let's break it down: Lawyer. Legal. Legislature.
Please consider thinking before you parrot your next ignorant truism.
Be well,
Qrlx
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Well, thinking about it, lawyers do live in a very specific world: services industry, high income, mainly white... People with other backgrounds probably would have a different take on many things.
PLus, I personnally see lawyers as a necessary evil, not as leaders with a vision and the guts+drive to make it happen.
Leaders can hire lawyers. The reverse is, alas, not true.
Did I *think* enough for you ?
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Sorry, but there are different qualifications needed for two different jobs.
Just because I can write C doesn't mean I'm the world's best GUI designer. Just because someone speaks legalese doesn't mean they are going to make great laws.
They may make well-written laws, but that doesn't make them good.
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Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here?
The Constitution doesn't require a lawyer to translate it, only a bit of average High School education. See the point?
Apparently (Score:5, Funny)
They didn't get the email.
missing emails .. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Recently, the Bush White House said it had located 14 million e-mails that were misplaced and that the White House had restored hundreds of thousands of other e-mails from computer backup tapes. The steps the White House took are inadequate, one of the two groups, the National Security Archive, told a federal judge in court papers filed Friday.
They even use "emails" as the plural "email" like you do.
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Do you have any idea how much of a bitch it is to keep backups of gigabytes or terabytes of data constantly preserved and updated? How much time it takes to make an image and put it on tapes?
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Kinda reminds me of Nixon days... Watergate mess.
Everything do get backed up on tapes but they are recycled after so many days or months. So if the retention policy is every 3 months then it'll get recycled.
When I was working for a large data center I created a backup policy as follows:
Daily backups are kept 30 days.
Weekend backups are kept 90 days.
Month end backups are kept for 1 year.
Year end backups are kept for 3 years.
Problem with e-mails you can't rely on your backup software alone. You need another
The bailout mascot (Score:3, Funny)
new government mascot [imagehost.org]
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You missed something.
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who would do the work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Job creation. (Score:5, Funny)
Who would have to do the work hunting down the "missing" emails? If the task falls to Obama's staff who weren't even there during the whole Bush thing, then I can't really blame him. If you took on a new job, would you like to be told that rather than focus on the tasks that they were hired to do, instead your staff was going to have to digging around through your predecessors crap to try to find something that may or may not be there?
they can hire extra IT staff to do the job.
See, job creation!
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Actually the government needs to subpoena whoever is in charge of IT at that time.
The new IT staff shouldn't be responsible of whatever happened during Bush's administration. They can try look for lost e-mails but there is no telling exactly what happened to them. I believe the deletions were on purpose to cover up whatever was going on at that time. The thing is they have to prove it.
Even the exchange server keeps transaction logs. They too can be purged.
I wish them luck finding the lost e-mails.
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"Who would have to do the work hunting down the "missing" emails?"
If there was openness and transparency in these things, then the person/s or organizations wanting the records in the first place could be enlisted to aid in their recovery thus freeing "your staff [from] digging around through your predecessors crap".
Unless, of course, there's something there that you wish to hide.
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Have you ever had a job? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone appointed/hired by Obama's administration.
If you were hired in the civilian sector and one of the things you sold yourself on to your new boss was your belief in email recovery, wouldn't you expect to be asked to do just that?
Get a job in IT. That's what I have to go through ALL THE TIME.
What decisions were made.
Why were those specific decisions made.
How were they implemented.
Why were they implemented in that specific way.
And yes, a LOT of it DOES involve going through my predecessor's email and notes.
If I am hired to recover the email, I work on recovering the email. Even if I have to recommend bringing in a recovery specialist. There are 300 million people in the USofA. It shouldn't be that difficult to find a few people to handle this. Instead, he's arguing against even TRYING.
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In principle I agree, but I'm confused about why partisan staff should be involved in this kind of thing in the first place.
Surely someth
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Re:who would do the work? (Score:4, Funny)
"and leave a complete dimwit in control of the country." ...again...
I dunno. (Score:5, Insightful)
The New IBM PC Jr 9000 (Score:3, Funny)
Now with tint control!
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Now with tint control!
Please somebody mod this hilarious.
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Here in Mexico... (Score:5, Interesting)
we experienced something similar after an opposition party won the elections for the first time in 70 years. One would expect all corruption would be wiped out, but it didn't happen (mainly because the then candidate president promised not to fire people just because there was a change in the admin). It's OBVIOUS that when the bureaucrats notice they're gonna be watched, they start covering each other's asses.
Why would the people in the Obama administration be any different?
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an opposition party won the elections for the first time in 70 years. One would expect all corruption would be wiped out
No, one would not.
One would expect to be promised such things, but one should never expect a small event like an election to wipe out something as pervasive as corruption.
ESPECIALLY in a place as thoroughly corrupt on all levels as Mexico.
That's like saying that with a diagnosis of metastasizing cancer, one would expect total remission after the first treatment. One should not.
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ESPECIALLY in a place as thoroughly corrupt on all levels as Mexico.
The simple truth is that the US is at least as corrupt as Mexico - War On Drugs, while we're the world's largest consumers. World's largest per-capita polluters. World's largest arms dealer (including the biological WMDs that Saddam used to have that we knew were over their expiry date.)
In Mexico, the cops left the police force to join the drug producers. In the USA, the cops are part of the drug economy.
Re:Here in Mexico... (Score:4, Insightful)
The simple truth is that the US is at least as corrupt as Mexico
Wait a second. Do you seriously believe that? Can you so easily dismiss the corruption that permeates the Mexican society (yes, not only the political institutions)? It's a corruption so pervasive, people take it for granted and live by it.
The USA certainly has the faults you listed, I won't deny any of those, but to say that it's more corrupted than Mexico?
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The simple truth is that the US is at least as corrupt as Mexico
Wait a second. Do you seriously believe that? Can you so easily dismiss the corruption that permeates the Mexican society (yes, not only the political institutions)? It's a corruption so pervasive, people take it for granted and live by it.
The USA certainly has the faults you listed, I won't deny any of those, but to say that it's more corrupted than Mexico?
Besides, if we were that corrupt we wouldn't even notice the wave of violence and corruption that's making it's way around the U.S. from our neighbor to the south. Matter of fact, most of us aren't noticing it, but that's only because our media isn't bothering to report it. I happen to have family in Arizona, not far from the border, and they have a very different story to tell.
So, yes, comparing Mexico to the United States in that regard is ridiculous.
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The "bailout" (i.e. handout) is going to cost more than Mexico's entire GDP. I rest my fucking case.
The fact is... (Score:2, Interesting)
if ANYONE had ANYTHING on Bush he would have been impeached a long time ago...
This tells me that they are all corrupt, we NEED a viable third (or more) political party(ies)!
Namely someone who respects the Constitution.
Every president ever has done something like this (Score:2, Insightful)
Every president since the concept of executive privilege has fought tooth and nail for it. This includes defending your predecessor's use of it. Regardless of intent, Obama could be hurt by a ruling against the previous administration.
This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically, all of the the talk of transparency was lip service, either that - or they have been made aware of what the content of those emails will show.
Obama is showing hypocrisy in record time, he's barely been in a month. It's not like he is reneging on a campaign promise, it sure makes it seem like practically his ENTIRE stated message about transparency in government was total bullshit.
I wanted Ron Paul, and I think that anybody who understands how our government really functions these days, the constitution, the lessons of history as they relate to empires and our debt based Federal Reserve manipulated economy who got a chance to hear his message likely did too...
Unfortunately I think the current state of the economy and it's effect on the day to day lives of most Americans is spec-fuckin-tacular compared to where it's headed - We're following the path of the Weimar Republic here, and guess how that turned out...
I live right next door to independence hall - it's literally something I see when I walk outside of my home every morning; I see that, and the eternal flame which burns at the mass graves of al of the unknown revolutionary solders buried in Washington Sq ....it's really sad, and sadness is what I feel every time I see these reminders of our history and founding...our empire is crumbling and most of the people on the street don't even know what the word "empire" means and how it applies to America today and are more interested in some Hip Hop MTV retard beating his girlfriend or what happened on TV last night. We don't need to be an empire, empires always end one way.
After Obama won (and out of him and McCain) I figured he would be better choice out of the two because at least he was saying he wanted to limit executive power and was all about openness, etc, etc ad infinitum - I knew the guy was a politician, but given the passion with which he seemed infused with he seemed to have some integrity....I guess we'll see how much he really does....
Right now think the best thing people can do is support the states rights movement - 20 states are taking action to formally remind the federal government of the limits of their power under the 10th Amendment, 20 states are re-asserting sovereignty under the 10th amendment - There is some great stuff going on in New Hampshire also - it seems they really do want to 'live free or die' there...; PA rep Sam Rohrer is heavily active in promoting these resolutions , and it's very important:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bbrXnYJOo [youtube.com]
If you are concerned about what the federal government is doing - make sure to support the resolutions, in the state, in the house and senate by contacting your reps.
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If you are concerned about what the federal government is doing
Sorry, my state government (California) is busy with a financial rape rampage of epic proportion at the moment. They seem to think that one of the biggest and most regressive state tax increases in history is a real good idea in a dying economy, despite every single piece of empirical evidence being against them. We're adopting the NH motto of "Live Free or Die" although we're shortening it to simply "Die".
Re:This is getting ridiculous (Score:5, Informative)
"Obama is showing hypocrisy in record time, he's barely been in a month. It's not like he is reneging on a campaign promise, it sure makes it seem like practically his ENTIRE stated message about transparency in government was total bullshit."
Whoa whoa whoa, lets look at the actual facts before accusing Obama of "total bullshit."
The reason this is in the news right now - ie, what actually happened recently - is that the National Security Archive (the good guys who are suing for the emails) filed a response to the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the suit. So what's in the news right now isn't about a recent Obama decision.
The motion to dismiss was made on January 21st, which is right after the inauguration. Now, if Obama's absolute top priority was to change the government's position on defending against this suit, he could have ordered the justice department not to make the motion. But, what's much more likely, this motion was made by staff attorneys at the Justice Department, completing the job they were ordered to do earlier in January. It seems likely to me that they had finished drafting this motion to dismiss on the prior business day. Since the inauguration was holiday, and the day before that was MLK day, and before that the weekend... its likely the motion to dismiss was ready to be filed on January 16th, and that's when the lawyers' bosses ordered it done.
Since Obama wasn't in charge of the Justice Department until Jan 21st, the day the motion was filed, it's very likely there's nothing he could have done to stop it - he, and his staff, probably didn't know the motion was ready and ordered to be filed, and probably hadn't replaced the drafting lawyers' bosses yet anyway.
In fact, that the motion to dismiss was made the day after the inauguration makes it seem very likely that Bush holdovers were just doing everything they could, as fast as they could, to keep the cover up going.
You should hold your outrage until Obama (who's been pretty damn busy - passing a 800B stimulus package in the first month is unprecedented, but more on point is is ordering all agencies to presume in favor of disclosure when making FOIA decisions) actually has a chance to take a stance in this case.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Passing that 800B "stimulus" bill is more than enough reason to be outraged. Especially given the conditions under which it was pass: Less than 24 hours for the whole of the House to share and review (reportedly) only five copies of a partially handwritten bill that was over 1,000 pages long.
Nobody read it. And, like Bush before him, Obama used FUD to push it through.
Verdict Rendered in Record Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama is showing hypocrisy in record time, he's barely been in a month.
He has barely been in a month. And inside that month, I've heard more final-sounding verdicts on his presidency than in any new president's time in the last 16 years of following politics. He's just another politician. He doesn't care about privacy. Or the constitution. Or transparency. His talk of bipartisanship is empty. He doesn't understand economics. He's vindicated Bush by having any measure of continuity. He's responsible for the
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our empire is crumbling and most of the people on the street don't even know what the word "empire" means and how it applies to America today
Neither do you, it seems. There are some people that could help define more precisely what an Empire is ... and is not. The Romans, Persians, even the Greeks: a more recent example would be our British friends. They really had that empire business down pat.
Of course, most of them are dead and buried now: that's the usual fate of empires and empire builders. Now, if you're referring to economic hegemony I'd agree, but that's a very different matter.
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This greed and revenge continued, with a unsupported war that is little other than a means to funnel government funds to the people who al
can you say... (Score:2)
bait and switch....?
Re:can you say... (Score:4, Interesting)
I suggest that people monitor the following site:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/ [politifact.com]
It gives a good overall view of whether it is 'bait and switch' or not.
So far the meter shows 15 promises kept and 2 broken. That is almost close to 90%. I'd say that is a pretty good score.
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Which one are you talking about? The 5 day waiting period? Pfft... that's not about transparancy.
According to a wide variety of other commentators it certainly is.
http://www.propublica.org/article/take-two-obama-short-on-transparency-pledge-again-090205 [propublica.org]
What about his promise that he wouldn't continue Bush's abuse of the state secrets privilege? Because he has ignored that.
I would not exactly say he ignored it. For example in his first day in office he implemented a roll back of an important Bush secrecy dir
To quote The Who (Score:2)
Meet your new boss... same as the old boss...
Hard or Soft fascism. That was the choice. (Score:3, Interesting)
I keep hearing about how Obama represents a "Mixed Bag".
Whatever. The whole show keeps moving forward. Keep an eye out for the "Amero".
And when the rocks start falling, people will be willing to follow this president to the shelters. Just remember, that barbed wire is for our protection. Don't be alarmed by the fact that it's facing inwards. I'm sure there will be a good rationalization for that.
-FL
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I keep hearing about how Obama represents a "Mixed Bag".
Obama & Biden are more of a "salt and pepper" team, if you ask me.
SHOVE it in his face then. (Score:2)
let him get ahold of those who he had appointed in those posts. often tail wants to behave differently from what head wants.
NO Change (Score:2)
..that we can believe in.
Breaking news! (Score:2)
New boss - same as the old boss (Score:3, Interesting)
Here we go again... Just another lie! Where is the transperency he promised? He made A LOT of promises and hasn't kept ONE yet.... The global elite really are pulling this guys strings worse than Bush....
Can one of the Obaaaaaamanoids tell us ONE promise he made he has kept????
This is starting to remind me of the Ministry song "Lies, Lies, Lies"..
"America has been hijacked
Not by Al Qaeda, not by Bin Laden
But by a group of tyrants
That should be of great concern to all Americans
We're on a mission to bring out the facts
You got your stories but they all have cracks
Misinformation, lies and deceit
What made you think that we were all asleep
Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies X3
Surpise surprise"
Lynching Bush Administration worthless to Obama... (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot versus Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot articles about Obama are hilarious. There's always the initial, hysterical article about how Obama is doing something oh-so-terrible (e.g. killing net neutrality). Then, some days or weeks later (if we're lucky) there will be a followup article calmly stating that the previous article was overreacting (e.g. nothing against net neutrality in the stimulus bill).
Remember all those complains about the stimulus package being full of pork? Then we discover that the supposed "pork" is actually money for schools and Internet access.
I have no doubt that this effect is replaying itself yet again. It's a good sign that there are so few real scandals that we have to invent our own, but a bad sign that we are so eager to be distracted by scandal.
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I think they'd have had to actually vote for it (excluding the 3 house RINOs) for there to be concessions.
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he now claims he wants to reduce the deficit by 2/3 by increasing the tax on the employers. (Who do you think the "rich" are anyway???)
Why shouldn't the rich pay more taxes than the poor?
Haven't you ever heard of Robin Hood? You do realize he was one of the good guys, right?
With Bush, we reduced taxes on the rich. Did their money trickle down? Not so much. Instead, they used it to inflate a huge stock market bubble. Now, everyday Americans see their retirement savings cut in half.
Seems like not taxing
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Seems like not taxing the rich was a huge mistake.
No, the mistake is claiming that the rich aren't being taxed.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml [cbo.gov]
In 2005, the top 20% paid 86.3% of federal income taxes, and 68.7% of all federal taxes (social security, individual and corporate income, excise). The average pre-tax income in that quintile was $231,500, although that was adjusted for household size. See the footnotes for an explanation.
For the top 10%, it was 72.7% and 54.7%, on average pre-tax income of $339,100.
For the
Re:Just More of the Same Change ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your well-formatted, statistically dense post conveniently glossed over the fact that income taxes are not reflective of the entire tax burden.
Care to have another go at it?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Your well-formatted, statistically dense post conveniently glossed over the fact that income taxes are not reflective of the entire tax burden.
Is there any other federal tax burden that the poor and middle class, as a whole, bear more heavily than the rich?
Sales tax is local. Property tax is local. Even vehicle tax is, seeing how it's levied by the DMV of each state, local.
At the federal level, the rich have been getting shafted on the income tax and haven't even been getting a word of thanks for supporting the rest of the country (federally-supported-program-wise, which is most of the welfare program in U.S.).
Yes, perhaps the poor pay more sales
You're absolutely right...this needs to be changed (Score:3, Interesting)
I suggest that, rather than taxing earned income, we exempt it and tax only unearned income.
That way, the more you work the more money you keep. If you make $20,000 in retail, you get to keep all of it. If you make $250,000 being a stock broker, you keep it. If you sit around on your ass waiting cashing in capitol gains (which means you sold a stock and are taking money _out_ of the system), living off the teat of dividends (again, money which is _not_ being reinvested directly by the company) or interest,
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Re: (Score:2)
I've just finished reading this novel. The interesting theme that Card points out is that intensive partisanship is a destructive force. In an even more interesting afterword, Card identifies himself as a recipient of both radical and reactionary ostracism as a tendency away from moderation and idiological tolerance.
My personal opinion is that the world has more serious issues to deal with than a witchhunt into the past. I'd rather the new administration be forward-looking, constructive, and collaborative instead of backward-focused, destructive, and contentious. Difficult times call for solving present problems in the future, not solving past problems in the present. The election did the latter.
Nice sounding words, but the reality is that if Obama doesn't deal with this effectively now, it will continue to happen. A focus on the past is a good part of what politics is about, because that's how we know what worked ... and what did not. And what George Bush did, generally didn't.
Re:You don't get it,,,Tes, we do (Score:2)
I'd argue that the whole point of finding them is to pursue and enforce a sense of accountability. If people that get into office are going to do any of the completely lame things that was done by the Bush administration they should be prepared to answer for it. Otherwise, it's a free-for-all.